sweetgirlcrafting

Monday, April 23, 2012

This time of year, it's great to bring a little of the Spring indoors, even though, truthfully, the weather around me has been more winter-like than anything.

I have been wanting to paint some butterflies on something, but needed a good medium on which to do it.

I have accumulated some inexpensive fold-up/stacked tables. The ones that are really cheap and used as little end tables or tv trays that you can find at any store for dirt cheap-I think I paid $2 for mine.

I have also accumulated an assortment of wood trays, so I decided to combine the two and came up with a really cute table that is perfect for displaying butterflies.

I attached a tray to the top of the table and painted it in Annie Sloan Old White Chalk Paint. Then hand stenciled my butterflies on top. (I threw in a couple of dragonflies as well!).

I stenciled a butterfly on burlap and displayed it in a frame I had recently painted. It is a nice touch on top of the table.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Recently, my daughter decided that it was time to change things up a bit in her room; that she had outgrown the flower stencils on her wall and pastel colors flecked throughout on her bedspread, curtains and pillows. A really good friend of hers, who just recently had her room re-done in all things zebra, had sparked this need for change. Thinking I might have time to take on a new project, I found myself volunteering my crafty services and offering to redecorate her room to whatever she wanted. I didn't know what I was getting myself into when she revealed to me what she would like the "theme" of her room to be.

Pentagons are probably the most annoying shape in the geometrical universe. When you put pentagons and throw them in the middle of a bunch of hexagons....well now you just have pure chaos!

If you haven't figured it out yet...my daughter decided that she would like her room redone with a SOCCER theme. There's a reason there isn't a whole lot of room decor with a soccer theme. While seemingly a simplistic design, the pattern on a soccer ball is actually quite complex and not easily duplicated, I can assure you!

I have gone crazy with this shape. I decided to hand paint them on a new white comforter that I had purchased on sale. I had to make my own soccer ball stencils to place on and trace because trying to free hand a soccer ball is nearly impossible to get right. Because of the rounded 3-D effect of a ball, the shapes are never all the same size...and drawing pentagons and hexagons are hard enough as is!

I found some plain cork circles at IKEA (I think they were supposed to be trivets), but I thought painting them and hanging them to use as a picture board would be interesting. I made them look more rustic...then hung them on the wall...complete with some favorite pictures.

My daughter has had her bedroom furniture since she was a baby, so I had no problem changing it up a bit and making it fun. I took off all of the knobs in hopes of replacing them with soccer ball knobs, but couldn't find enough for all of her drawers. I started the tedious task of hand-painting all of the knobs and part-stamped, part-hand painted soccer balls on all of them.

Then I added some color to some white chalkboard paint I had and added chalk strips to the front of her drawers. My daughter loved writing the labels on each drawer so that her Dad knows where to put away her clothes!

I wanted her to have some artsy/crafty items on her wall...ones that were "sans" soccer balls, so I antiqued a small cupboard to hold her Swarovski Crystal collection (she has just 2 now!) and hung it on her wall. The little figurines look adorable in it!

A couple of more art pieces on the walls...

and her room is ALMOST complete. I am planning a big mural for one wall that I have not started yet and I have a fun chandelier that I have yet to hang, still, I think it is coming along pretty good and she really likes it so far!

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About Me

I am inspired by everyday items around me that may look like trash to the normal person, but I take a look at it and say....wow! I can think of so many things to do with this!
I am your typical suburban Mom...except for the fact that I am a trash junkie and craft horder! A really fun day for me is browsing through a garage sale or flea market to find that one extraordinary item of junk that can be turned into something fabulous!